Food Marketing Institute (FMI) supports Senator John Thune’s (R-SD) introduction of an estate tax repeal bill today that will negate an unfair form of double taxation that threatens family-owned grocers.

“Senator Thune is a strong advocate for family-owned supermarkets in the United States,” FMI Senior Vice President of Government and Public Affairs Jennifer Hatcher said. “The estate tax forces business owners to spend their fortunes on estate planning instead of expanding their businesses and creating new jobs.”

Background for Media:

The estate tax poses a unique threat to America’s family-owned businesses. Although designed to impact only the very wealthy, it has just as frequently been applied to the kind of small and medium-sized businesses that are at the core of the U.S. economy. Long considered the most confiscatory tax imposed by the U.S. government, the rate has risen in the past to as high as 55 percent. And it is imposed following an owner’s death, at a time when businesses are most in need of all available resources.

Source: Food Marketing Institute